G minor 7 - Research on Harmony

Nine notes from G1 to Bb7 — nearly the full keyboard, the densest étude in the minor seventh collection. Played Lent, mp, legato, in four — slow, meditative, the notes flowing into one another. The line rises from G1 at the bottom to Bb7 at the crest, then folds back: an arch, a breath held and released. The G minor seventh chord — G, Bb, D, F — fills every register, all four chord tones present, the harmony complete.

Red-orange grounds the root in the bass, compressing toward black at G1 and G2. Violet carries the minor third and seventh through the lower-middle register at Bb3 and F3. Orange warms the middle at D4 and D5, the minor third's complement. At the top, the canvas dissolves — silver at Bb6, pale cream at Bb7, the violet identity of the minor third bleaching to near-white.

The opening statement: the full chord declared across seven octaves, every tone accounted for, the slow arch spanning darkness to light and returning. Everything that follows will be a subtraction from this.